Panel Lebensqualität und Teilhabe – Feld- und Methodenbericht der Welle 1

"This research report describes the design and implementation of wave 1 of the panel survey "Quality of Life and Social Participation". Furthermore, it details the data preparation as well as some first results on methodological aspects of the field work are presented. The new panel survey is conducted as part of a larger collaborative project conducted by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) to evaluate the “Teilhabechancengesetz” (Participation Opportunities Act). The central goal of the Teilhabechancengesetz is to improve the employability and social participation of long-term unemployed people with very poor labor market prospects and who have been receiving means-tested unemployment benefits according to Social Code (SC) II for an extended period of time (Deutscher Bundestag 2019). The Teilhabechancengesetz is comprised of two active labor market programs that are designed as a wage subsidy for employers, accompanied by a job coaching for participants. The subsidy “Eingliederung von Langzeitarbeitslosen” can be granted to employers for hiring unemployment benefit II recipients who were already unemployed for at least two years. But there are also other criteria that unemployment benefit II recipients have to meet, so that their employment can be subsidised by the wage subsidy “Teilhabe am Arbeitsmarkt”. They must be at least 25 years old. Moreover, during the last seven years they must have received at least for six years benefits according to the SC II and must have been most of the time non-employed. For people living in households with dependent children and for people with a disability alternatively a receipt of benefits according of SC II for the last five years is sufficient, provided that they have been employed only shortly during this period. The first program "Eingliederung von Langzeitarbeitslosen” (Integration of the long-term unemployed) under Article 16e SC II has a duration of two years and aims at improving participants’ chances on the regular job market. Whereas the second program "Teilhabe am Arbeitsmarkt” (Participation in the labor market) under Article 16i SC II has a duration of up to five years and focusses on increasing participants’ prospects of social inclusion. In order to investigate how support through the two employment subsidy programs affects the employability and social participation of the supported persons, two interconnected panel surveys (one per program) were newly constructed by the IAB. In each panel survey, both subsidized persons according to Article 16e or Article 16i SC II (treatment group) and non-subsidized employable people entitled to benefits (control group) are interviewed by telephone. In order to examine the short-term, medium-term and long-term effects of participation in the employment programs, the study design has three waves for the 16e-panel and four waves for the 16i-panel. The survey will comprehensively assess individual social participation and employability as central target dimensions of the evaluation. The central dimensions of social participation are individual life satisfaction, social recognition, social and material participation, and personal health. Employability is operationalized, among other things, with the help of individual working conditions and burdens, job search, work orientation, and aspects of work-life balance. In addition to the two target dimensions, the participants are also asked about their perception of the implementation of the programs according to Articles 16i and 16e SC II. Of particular interest is in this regard their experience of initiation and participation in the programs as well as information on employment support (coaching) as a central design feature of the new support instruments. The study design allows to link survey data to additionally generated paradata (e.g. timestamps of interview durations) as well as to administrative data of the Federal Employment Agency - provided that the respondents agree to the linkage of their data. Thus, the panel Quality of Life and Social Participation has a huge potential for analysis. Between May 2020 and March 2021 about 16,800 telephone interviews were conducted by the survey institute SOKO during data collection for wave 1. In this report, central aspects of field work and field progress are described in more detail. This includes, in particular, fieldwork management, deployment of interviewers, and measures to increase the willingness to participate in wave 1 of the survey (response propensity). Also, efforts to get consent to be contacted for follow-up waves (panel consent) and to have one's own survey data linked with administrative data (linkage consent) are documented. Furthermore, the procedure of data preparation including weighting is described. Finally, the report includes first results on methodological issues based on the collected data, such as contact and response rates as well as quality-relevant aspects such as interviewer effects or comparability of treatment and control group (matching quality). The data of wave 1 was collected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the report also explains how this circumstance was considered in the development of the questionnaire and other aspects of the survey design." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))